Great! I'm in the process of setting up a Toppy 2400 and the 5000 is now relegated to Mrs Wing Nut's TV room to be defiled with the likes of Medium, Desperate Housewives, etc. A follow on has been my reluctance to remove a 150GB of Top Gear, Mythbusters, Air Crash, Wallace and Gommet, etc from it and her subsequently spotting their continued presence on her Toppy!

I bought a 1.5TB Samsung ($128!) the other day and sucked them off the 5000's HDD in case she takes action herself, but now I'm thinking her new found enthusiasm at setting weekly timers and lack of time to watch them all will quickly fill the current 300GB HDD even after my shows have been dumped. I'm tempted to get another cheap 1.5TB and try it out in the 5000 using the DX SATA adapter I bought some time ago.

I'm having trouble visualising the chop job you've done, kiwiconehead, and wondering if you could elaborate a bit? Thanks

Well I've tried 2 different Sata adaptors, the newest one was the DealExtreme one, but I'm still having problems. The WD green 1TB drive is ok, tested in my pc, but when playing back recorded programs in the toppy, playback will just stop randomly. Gets annoying. (Silver 5000 PVRT)

It will record ok, just playback is the issue. Tried formatting the drive, doing a single recording and playing back, same issue. Must be just something with the adaptor I guess.

Oh well, the old (upgraded 400GB Samsung IDE) drive is back in there now, and I'll keep the 1TB drive for that Toppy 7100 Plus I've been eying off

I recently upgraded to a 500GB WD Sata drive on my PVRt4400* with not a hint of a problem. After reading some of the tales of woe, I was quite surprised how easy it was. The "Pata IDE to Sata" adapter came from Dragonext.com * 4400 uses the same motherboard as the 5000 but with a few components (and features) missing.

I also got an eSata + molex connector for the back of the PVR and now just plug the hard drive in externally (powered from the PVR). This keeps the drive (and inside the box) cooler and now it's so much easier to transfer files to my PC.

Edit: InsideCo no longer have these adapters. To make it harder there are many different ideas about the gender of sata plugs (well, two actually ) To me, a male plug has (usually exposed) conductors or pins that enter holes or, in this case, a slot. What I'm referring to is a joiner or adapter for 2 sata cable plugs. Google "sata cable joiner". The prices can be a bit shocking. Don't pay more than $6 or 3GBP.
Peter

Last edited by inglewoodpete on Fri Feb 08, 2013 5:11 am; edited 1 time in total

Well I've tried 2 different Sata adaptors, the newest one was the DealExtreme one, but I'm still having problems. The WD green 1TB drive is ok, tested in my pc, but when playing back recorded programs in the toppy, playback will just stop randomly. Gets annoying. (Silver 5000 PVRT)

I'm wondering if it's just that the WD 1TB drive you have is just a little too power hungry - even with the 'green' label? There's a list somewhere (was on the old Toppy forum?) that had some guesstimated limits for the 5000's HDD's power consumption. Some current HDDs can chew a lot of amps, especially at startup, then settling to about 5% - 10% of that while in use.

Well after looking again at the WD site, the WD10EARS 1TB model I have that is having problems has --
Read/Write 5.40 Watts
Idle 5.40 Watts
Standby 0.40 Watts
Sleep 0.40 Watts

There is another WD model on their site called the WDAV-GP, and this is a 1.5TB drive that is specifically suitable for PVRs etc. Its power requirments are--
Read/Write 5.91 Watts
Idle 4.90 Watts
Standby 0.66 Watts
Sleep 0.66 Watts

Strange, the one I bought has less power draw, so this leads me to believe it may be the sata adaptor still at fault. I'm not sure I want to spend another $90.00 to test the theory, but then again I won't rest till I know so I probably will,

I did not have any concerns about using another WD drive. I think the environment in my video cabinet is not the best, even though I have taken the cabinet's back panel off completely. Both hard drives have failed in an Australian summer, with indoor temperatures getting over 30C when we're out and the airconditioning is not running. The temp inside the cabinet may reach the high 30s - not good for consumer electronics in the long term.

I'm going to see if I can fit a cooling fan in the (external) hard-drive case. My concern is that the Toppy power supply is already running near its limit - it's only rated by the manufacturer at 25W. Adding a fan may tax the supply a bit.

As an aside, I replaced the electros on the power supply board about a year ago.

The PVR, a Topfield 4400, has fired up fine with the new WD5000AAKX. Formatting took a couple of seconds. Obviously not a Microsoft product!

The PVRt4400 is now on the second TV: an older model and needs the digital tuner in the Toppy. The main set has a TRF2400 HD model, which I'm very pleased with. My wife is having trouble understanding the new buttons, though!

I'm going to see if I can fit a cooling fan in the (external) hard-drive case. My concern is that the Toppy power supply is already running near its limit - it's only rated by the manufacturer at 25W. Adding a fan may tax the supply a bit.

As the new drive probably draws significantly less power than the original, there should be plenty of spare capacity for a fan.

Well I've tried 2 different Sata adaptors, the newest one was the DealExtreme one, but I'm still having problems. The WD green 1TB drive is ok, tested in my pc, but when playing back recorded programs in the toppy, playback will just stop randomly. Gets annoying. (Silver 5000 PVRT)

I'm wondering if it's just that the WD 1TB drive you have is just a little too power hungry - even with the 'green' label? There's a list somewhere (was on the old Toppy forum?) that had some guesstimated limits for the 5000's HDD's power consumption. Some current HDDs can chew a lot of amps, especially at startup, then settling to about 5% - 10% of that while in use.

A new drive will typically take less power however its not unusual for the PSU in a 5xxx series Toppy to start going out of spec in as little as 2 years of use. The disk or adapter may be operating marginally if the PSU voltages are low.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Topfield_5800/PSU_Repair

(the info on capacitor failures originally came from then Australian forums)